


card games

by r0wlets



Category: A Saga of Light and Dark - T.J. Chamberlain
Genre: Gen, emmet is probably not good with children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:22:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28763283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r0wlets/pseuds/r0wlets
Summary: Emmet plays strip poker with Poseidon. In hindsight, it probably wasn't good to challenge a 12 year old prodigy. Oneshot.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	card games

**Author's Note:**

> i'm in deep lmao. that's all i gotta say. i haven't finished the damn book yet and i'm in deep lmao

_ card games _

Emmet sat in his chair backwards, leaning his full weight against its back. This was a critical moment in his life; nay, a critical moment in the  _ history  _ of the world. This was possibly a more decisive battle than that of Aether and Erebus five hundred years ago. It certainly trumped the time he knocked Nerissa over in training for the first time a couple of months ago. He still savored her startled look, deep blue eyes scowling at him as he stood over her, fire pulsing within his triumphant fingers. 

He bit down on his lip, tasting blood. It was now or never. Smirking, he laid out his cards on the table, black spades facing up. “Flush,” he snarled.

This would be the hand where Emmet would turn his luck around, for sure. The gods had not been smiling upon him all day; perhaps it was their cosmic punishment for engaging in mindless gambling. War was inevitable and there wasn’t much to do, so a trend had popped up where some of the men began playing card games or dice in exchange for rations. It was a fun way to pass the time. Nerissa had called him stupid and Isobel warned him against indulging too much, but so far Emmet was unrivalled in card games. He was quick, charming, and good-looking, and he usually gave back his winnings at the end of a game. 

So why was he sucking so hard now? 

Across from him Poseidon was stone-faced, his small shoulders draped by Emmet’s jacket like a royal cape. Other parts of Emmet’s clothes also adorned the boy’s body - Emmet’s socks sat halfway up the boy’s knees, and Emmet’s gloves looked like flattened pancakes compared to his bony hands, and resting on his face was an oversized, neon pink pair of sunglasses that Emmet had accidentally stolen from his mother while packing the other day. Poseidon Smith, empathetic Grey mage and con-artist extraordinaire, born second to Adrienne and Ely Smith, 12 year old innocent-boy-who-could-do-no-wrong with overpowered healing powers.

Was absolutely kicking his ass. 

“Full house,” Poseidon murmured, laying his cards across from Emmet’s. 

Emmet stared in disbelief at the pair of 7s and three 8s laid out in front of him. There was just no freaking way.

“I think one of those 7s are 1s,” he said weakly, pointing half-heartedly at the table. 

This might have worked with one of the older men, but not with Poseidon. “Nope. Both 7s. Off with your shirt.” 

Grumbling, Emmet cursed under his breath as he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it forward. Poseidon picked it up from the ground and put it over his own clothes. Like everything else, it was three sizes too big. “Emmet, you may wanna quit while you’re ahead.”

“No freaking way,” Emmet snapped. “We’re supposed to become men. We see this through to the end.”

Poseidon had to have been cheating somehow. There was just no way he kept pulling these amazing hands. Emmet wasn’t the smartest guy in the world, he realized, so often his brain glossed over the details when Nerissa went on her long, informative rants about magic. Somewhere in the back of his head, he remembered one time when Nerissa told him of his emotional surges. Emmet didn’t understand the exact details, though, except that Poseidon could feel feelings more strongly and could make others feel similar to him. Could he possibly feel luckier and make Emmet feel unluckier? 

He squinted at the boy and shook his head. Nah, it had to have been crazy talk. Magic didn’t work like that...right? 

They shuffled the cards again and dealt their hands. It was getting close to dinner time, so either way this would be the decisive hand of decisive hands. Either Emmet could save face by lying to his comrades and say he was shirtless from all the  _ intensive manly training  _ he did today....or he would be humiliated as he marched down to the mess hall in naught more than his underwear. Not that he didn’t really have a lot of friends close to his age, but he really didn’t want Nerissa and Ada to see him like this. 

The temperature was beginning to drop, too. Emmet hugged himself for warmth, wishing he had his shirt and jacket back. Maybe gambling wasn’t the smartest move after all, but he would never admit it. It wasn’t Poseidon who was just talented. Time and time again proved that the Smith children were absolutely gifted in almost everything they did. If it wasn’t Poseidon with his street smarts and his charismatic energy, it was Nerissa with her book smarts and helping out like a walking, talking, magically-charged encyclopedia. The only other thing Emmet had up on Nerissa was the fact that she could barely make a scrambled egg edible. 

But Poseidon...Poseidon was a hard egg to crack. If he really put his mind to it, he probably could’ve surpassed Nerissa in book smarts as well. 

So it was up to a common boy like Emmet to be a hero and best the 12 year old prodigy in something, at the very least to give some morale to his fellow comrades so they wouldn’t feel as useless. He knew Nerissa and Poseidon didn’t mean it, but sometimes being bested time and time again in just the simplest things gave leeway to an inferiority complex. 

And Emmet was bitches.

A look of disdain briefly flashed through his face as he glanced at his cards. Two 3s and two 4s. Not the worst pair in the world, but not the best pair, either. Was it worth risking it all? From the edge of his cards, Emmet saw Poseidon humming to himself, kicking his legs back and forth. The boy was confident... _ too  _ confident. Surely too confident for Emmet to play his hand. Swallowing the dry lump in his throat, Emmet placed his cards facedown on the table. “I fold,” he muttered. 

Poseidon wordlessly placed his cards on the table. Absolute crap. 

A pit of fire swelled within Emmet’s stomach. There was just no way. This snot-bringer, formerly someone who he’d bonded close to over their male camaraderie and poking fun at Nerissa’s poor cooking skills, was beating him yet again. Poseidon began to stand up from his chair, moving his head in the clock’s direction. “It’s our time to eat. We better wrap this up.”

“Sit your butt down, buddy boy. One more.” 

“I think you’re making a terrible mistake, Emmet.”

“One. More,” Emmet repeated, the edge evident apparent in his voice. 

Poseidon sighed, then sat back down. The boys shuffled and dealt the cards again, and Emmet felt a wave of giddiness overtake him. Poseidon didn’t look too thrilled upon looking at his hand, and Emmet had four 10s, sitting right there in the palm of his hand. Finally, the gods were smiling down upon him. Emmet could finally overtake Poseidon in the most upsetting sweep of his life and take back his shirt, victorious. 

Leaning his head back, he spread the 10s out across the table. “How about that? A four of a kind,” he said smugly. “I guess we can’t win all of our games.”

“Royal flush.” 

Emmet stared in horror at the royals spread out across from his cards, his jaw dropping as if he were in a cartoon. This was probably the most upsetting upset of the millennium, even more upsetting than the time his mom gave him that dumb bowl cut when he was a kid, even more upsetting when he learned that magical theory deemed it near impossible that he could use his farts as a combustible weapon. 

His eyes dropped down to his belt.

“I guess we can’t win all of our games,” Poseidon sang in a mock tone, standing from his chair. “I’ll make sure to keep your clothes clean for the next time, Emmet.” 

“I’m a man, so I must….GGs, you little shit.”

He shut his eyes and undid his belt, dropping his pants to the ground. Folding the pants over his arm, he handed the pair to Poseidon and shook his hand. No matter what, Isobel had taught him never to be a sore loser. The two boys had an unspoken bond, a bond that would most likely have Emmet crawling back to play again within the next day or two. 

“Emmet?”

A chill ran through Emmet’s shoulders as he slowly turned around. Ada was standing in the doorway, phone in hand, the gold tint in her eyes sparkling with devilish amusement. Before Emmet could find something to cover his underwear, a snap could be heard within the room. Poseidon was by her side in an instant, innocently batting his baby boy eyes. “You like my new shades, Ada? I won them off of Emmet.”

“They’re very you, Sei,” Ada agreed. “Did...Did you win all of that off of Emmet?”

Poseidon moved his hands up and down in the air. “Oh, this? Yeah. Emmet’s pretty bad at bluffing, possibly worse than Issa.”

“Hey!”

The healers took a brief glance at him, then shared a giggle. Ever since Ada began venturing out of the infirmary and her comfort zone, Poseidon had been teaching her all sorts of mischief, the sort of mischief that only a 12 year old could muster. There was only one thing he could do. Dropping to his knees, Emmet crawled over to Ada’s side and pulled at her dress. “Ada.”

“Emmet, we’re gonna miss dinner if we keep goofing off like this,” Ada chided, hiding her giggling.

“Ada, please, I need you to do me this one solid,” Emmet begged, clasping his hands together. “Don’t send that to Nerissa. This was a battle of the gods and I went down bad. We can never speak of this again.” 

“She’s gonna find out as soon as you go into the mess hall.”

“No, no, no, don’t immortalize it! Ada...I need you to promise me.”

Ada raised an eyebrow at him. This was a losing battle, he knew it. Emmet lowered his forehead to the ground and bowed, in a final attempt to appease her. “Please, Ada, I’ll do anything. I’ll be your willing slave for the next month. No, the next  _ two  _ months. Just promise me you won’t send it and I’ll win it all back.” 

“But Emmet, I already sent it.” 

Or perhaps Ada always had a mischievous streak and he failed to notice it all along. 

Creeping up behind Ada was Nerissa, her lips tugged into a smirk as her arms were crossed against the chest. Poseidon ran up to her and gave her a hug at the waist as her eyebrow raised at the sight of him kowtowing. “I was wondering why you all are late to dinner. So you lose again, Emmet?”

“Goddammit.” 


End file.
